


Meeting Like This

by dragongummy



Category: The Following
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Manipulation, Emotionally Repressed, Language, M/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragongummy/pseuds/dragongummy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan Hardy tells them all that he meets with Joe once a day for information, to build more on his profile of him. He hasn't seen him in years, after all. But Ryan knows all about Joe. More than he knows anyone else. He just wants- no. Needs to know what makes Joe Carroll tick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting Like This

**Author's Note:**

> ....I ship them. HARD. SPOILERS for entire show so far. So 1x07

**-He's still learning things about Joe.-**

Ryan liked to think he knew everything about Joe Carroll. He knew a lot. But not all of it. Joe was a master of manipulation, that much was obvious. He knew how to morph words and use them seductively, ever changing them to fit the person he was talking to. He knew how to feign body language, how to appear to be what he wasn't. Knew how to seemlessly put on and take off the masks he had to wear. It would be almost admirable if they didn't hide the true face underneath.

Ryan is watching Joe from the security room. Joe probably knows he's watching. Ryan has requested a meeting with him yet again. He's insisted that he just "needs to get reaquainted" with Joe and his mind process again, but Ryan has never forgotten. He's also requested that no one listen in on them. Cameras were fine, just no audio.

"You're stretching it, Hardy," Parker says to him. "Fine, but we can only grant you ten minutes." She grabs Ryan's arm when he turns to walk away. "Cameras will be on. Ten minutes. That's all you're getting."

He steps into the room, feeling a bit more steady knowing their conversations are going to be veiled from the ears of the bureau. Joe is handcuffed and chained to the top of the steel table, only allowing a few inches of free movement. His eyes were trained on Ryan's face, a smile slowly forming. It wasn't a smile of malice or glee or hatred or anything.

It was nothing.

Just plastered there with no intention but to be there. A way of manipulation that Ryan has learned to see past, though most people can't. It's the eyes. Empty and rabid at the same time. Not caring _at all_ , not giving a shit about _anything_ , but able to turn wild and rampant in the blink of an eye. It's what made a man like Joe so dangerous. His ability to switch it on and off like that, and no one would even know because he hides it so well. Hides it beneath the mask of his smile.

"We've got to stop meeting like this, Ryan." Joe says languidly. 

**\- Joe doesn't like to be touched. -**

Ryan sits across from him mimicking Joe's pose by placing his hands on the table. Joe's eyes glance down for a fraction of a second and if he had blinked he would have missed it. And he's going out on a limb, he knows it's a risk. A stupid one based on a split second reaction that could lead to a cause and effect. But it was a _reaction_ which meant it was something. So Ryan leans forward and places a hand gently on top of both of Joe's.

Joe's hands twitch under his one and Ryan watches Joe's jaw clench. He cracks his neck by straining it to the side. It bleeds _irritable_ and _don't touch me_ and (Joe's eyes flicker from his hand back to his face) _caged animal_. And as quick as the anger was there, it slipped away and melted back into Joe's black eyes.

"Have I upset you, Joe?" The smile is back, but Ryan can feel the restraint Joe has to not pull his hands out from under his own. He's tense.

"Why, not at all. I only wish we had a scotch to celebrate this step in our relationship." Joe is glancing around the room now. "Did you have them turn the audio off, Ryan? Very clever of you." Ryan won't ask how he knows that. Joe knows a lot of things.

Ryan removes his hand and Joe pulls his own back as far as the chains will allow.

- **Joe wasn't capable of love. He simply didn't understand it.-**

"How is my Claire?" Joe asks.

"You don't care so why do you ask?" Joe purses his lips before shrugging.

"The Professor does," Joe says slowly. Joe the Professor. Not Joe the serial killer. Joe Carroll didn't care. But the Professor did. Of course.

"She's not holding up well considering the circumstances," Ryan says. A smile plays on Joe's lips for an instant and he nods to himself. It's always been a game to Joe. He still doesn't know if he even loved Claire or not, or if he pretended to because he thought that was what he was _supposed_ to do.

"Poor, fragile thing," Joe whispers. He looks at Ryan now with those dead eyes.

"And how are you, Ryan?" Ryan would never admit it, never _ever_ admit it to anyone. He still didn't like that he knew it of himself. The interest Joe showed him was different than what he showed others. Of course he'd told himself that it was a lie as well, that Joe just did what Ryan wanted. But Ryan watched him with other people. How his black eyes looked through the person talking or over their shoulder at a wall. He didn't see anyone. But he saw Ryan. He would zero in his focus and his eyes would follow everything he did. And if it didn't burn him with shame to feel a swell of something deep in his gut whenever Joe looked at him that way. Ryan wanted to know everything about Joe, down to his core. Wanted to see if his heart beat like the everyone else's or if something inside Joe had become defunct along the way.

"You already know how I am." Joe clicks his tongue and raises his hands in a defensive gesture.

"No need to raise your voice, my friend." Ryan remembers that night he'd had a drink with him. How Joe had seen right through him in the blink of an eye. How in minutes he had filled up a void inside him that had been there for as long as he had remembered. Now it's bigger than before, bleeding into his mechanical heart. He remembers how easily Joe could have gotten even deeper under his skin. Could have latched onto his bones and whispered things to him. And who knows. Maybe he'd be sitting on Joe's side. He thought that Joe would have been the thing he needed in his life, only to find out he was just _playing_ him.

"We're not friends, Joe." Joe just stares back with a smile. Somewhere deep down, they both know that's a lie. They're bonded together in something much deeper than friendship or love or hate. They'd given and taken everything from each other. Joe was a necessity in Ryan's life. Kept him from going under again and again by tempting and teasing and pushing and prodding. Ryan needed to see Joe's face to keep him going during the day. Needed to see that smirk and that curious head tilt he always did. Because it reminded Ryan of when he first met Joe; the man he _wanted_ to know.

Ryan could say he hated Joe. Joe was a deranged, sick man. He murdered 14 women. He's formed a cult of killers and has kidnapped his own son. He was as twisted as they came. But Ryan lost purpose when Joe was gone. The most fulfilling times in his life was when he was either with Joe or chasing him around the country.

"But we could have been," Joe sneers. And there it was. So laid out in front of Ryan that he had to get up and leave the room. They could have been. _They could have been. So easily._

God help him that Ryan Hardy wants to meet Joe Carroll in the next life. Maybe they'd be friends there.

He'd like that.


End file.
